Wise Crack

For several weeks we've being going to the opera, broadcast live by the Met, in our local theatre. It's a wonderful idea, the music is sumptuous and, most importantly, you get to eat popcorn. With each production the 'news' has spread and more and more people are attending. We figured that "La Boheme" would be a popular one so we got to the theatre early. We'd stopped at Harvey's and picked up a veggie burger for lunch and parked in the theatre lot and ate while watching others arrive. The opera folks were fairly easy to pick out.

Then a couple of young guys walk by the car. They were both wearing the 'too large' jeans and as they were walking one of the young men's pants slowly slid down his backside to reveal boxer shorts of a wild hue. With each step the pants dropped lower. We were betting on when he'd have to pull them up. But we burst into laughter when he, on entering the theatre, tried to pull his tee shirt down. We looked at each other and said, "No, not the opera type.

We'd bought the ticket days ago and Joe took me straight in because we wanted to be sure that I got into one of the disabled parking bays at the end of the row. Then Joe went back to wait for our friend who was a few minutes late. It seemed that half the crowd had some kind of assistive device with them. Walkers reigned supreme, I was the only wheelchair user, oxegen tanks, canes, crutches and there were, here and there, artifical limbs. The average age was 70 at least, I felt like chicken.

Then the two young men walked in and I immediately chastized myself for having misjudged them. They got down to the end of the row, looked around, like the were in some kind of bizarre landscape and the one with his jeans now so lowly slung that I was suprised he could walk, said to his friend, "Dude, I don't think this is the right theatre."

I said, "What are you here to see?"

He looked at me startled that I still had the capacity of speech, "Umm, 21."

"You are in the wrong place, this is the opera."

The started back and I heard him whisper, "I could tell by the audience that we were in the wrong place."

"What do you mean by that," I asked, grinning.

He paused. Put his fingers to his chin and stroked a couple of times. "You all look too intellegent for that kind of movie."

I give him props for that.

"Do I look smart in this?" Now there's a question to help me pick out my next wheelchair.